TRANSPORT is missing the emissions reduction bus. Indeed, greenhouse gas emissions from transport are growing, having increased nearly 56 per cent since 1990 at an average annual rate of 1.7 per cent. This represents the highest emissions growth of any sector of the economy.

Around 74.5 per cent of all transport emissions are generated from road vehicles including cars, vans, buses and trucks.

With the planet needing to rapidly decarbonise to reach net-zero targets, electric vehicles (EVs) are seen as a key part of the transport solution.

But the problem is how to accelerate EV uptake and implement complementary strategies to encourage people to shift to greener travel options.

Although the global EV market has had a rapid growth in sales over the past few years, exceeding 10 million vehicles in 2022 or around 14 per cent of all new cars sold, adoption rates are not consistent across the world.

But much can be learnt from government policies that have played a major role in removing barriers to adoption in the world’s top three EV markets – China, Europe and the United States – which collectively accounted for around 90 per cent of all EV sales in 2022.

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Governments that provided people with financial incentives to buy EVs have been able to achieve a substantial shift in consumer sentiment towards greener car purchases. These incentives were designed to reduce the purchase price gap between electric and conventional vehicles and have mainly taken the form of vehicle purchase subsidies or rebates or registration tax discounts.

Examples include the incentive schemes implemented in Norway since the 1990s, the US since 2008 and China since 2009.

EV drivers in Norway pay lower road tolls, gain access to bus lanes and benefit from cheaper, and in the past free, ferry crossings and public parking. People living in apartments have “charging rights” safeguarded by government legislation.

This all helped to increase EV sales to 50 per cent market share in 2020, and 79 per cent by 2022. No other nation comes close.

France provides targeted incentives for people with lower incomes to purchase EVs. Individuals with an annual income of up to 14,089 euros (S$20,631) are eligible to receive a bonus of up to 7,000 euros for the purchase of a new EV, while those above this threshold receive a maximum subsidy of 5,000 euros.

The subsidy is also capped at a maximum rate not exceeding 27 per cent of the vehicle’s gross purchase price.

For incentive programmes to be effective, they should be accompanied by higher taxes on polluting vehicles to encourage more drivers to make the switch to electric.

In the European Union (EU), 21 of the 27 member countries levied car taxes partially or totally based on carbon dioxide emissions in 2022.

Ireland first introduced an emissions-based car taxation policy in 2008. An analysis of its impacts found it produced a cumulative carbon dioxide savings of 1.6 million tonnes from 2008 to 2018.

A similar study that evaluated Norway’s vehicle emissions-based taxes found them to be powerful policies that also delivered large reductions in air pollution.

Other supporting policies include the so-called feebate system.

Feebates involve placing a levy on purchases of vehicles with high emissions and using the revenues to provide rebates for purchases of vehicles with zero or low emissions to offset their higher prices. Examples include France’s Bonus-Malus and New Zealand’s Clean Car Discount.

If developed carefully, these systems can be a cost-neutral method of discouraging purchases of high-emission vehicles and encouraging purchases of EVs.

Any credible EV strategy could also consider EV mandates and the phasing out of internal combustion engine vehicles.

More than 35 countries have already announced plans for either sales of fully electrified vehicles, fully electrified stocks or the full phase-out of internal combustion engine vehicles over the next 10 to 30 years.

The EU had planned to ban the sale of internal combustion engine cars from 2035. In February 2023, the European Parliament approved the ban, which was later revised to allow some combustion engines running on e-fuels to be sold beyond 2035. Still, this remains one of the world’s strongest measures to phase out fossil-fuel vehicles.

There have also been measures to phase out subsidies for fossil-fuel vehicles.

Examples include the fuel tax credit scheme in Australia. This scheme has been criticised for subsidising the consumption of fossil fuels, particularly in the mining industry, and for providing direct benefits for high-polluting heavy diesel vehicles over 4.5 tonnes.

Countries with high EV adoption rates have also backed up their transport decarbonisation strategies with robust fuel efficiency standards.

These standards aim to limit vehicle emissions by mandating a maximum annual average level of carbon emissions across a car company’s overall new car sales. Penalties are imposed on car manufacturers if these maximum levels are exceeded, which encourages them to offer low- and zero-emissions vehicles in markets that enforce these standards.

Properly devised standards also reduce the cap over time until all new vehicles sold become zero-emissions.

Strong fuel efficiency standards already cover more than 85 per cent of the international market.

In recent times, some countries have proposed to tighten these standards further. Examples include plans by the US to introduce strict new emissions limits that would require two-thirds of the vehicles sold in the US to be electric by 2032. The proposal, if ratified, will represent the most aggressive vehicle emissions reduction plan in the US and will deliver an average 13 per cent cut in pollution annually.

Australia is the only OECD country without mandatory fuel efficiency standards.

The federal government has announced plans for their introduction by the end of 2023. Given the current low EV uptake rates in Australia (around 8.4 per cent of new car sales compared with around 20 per cent globally), the standards need to be ambitious with clear targets for EV sales and timelines for phasing out internal combustion engine vehicles.

The International Council on Clean Transportation is recommending policies to accelerate the deployment of EV-charging infrastructure, including binding installation targets aligned with the expected growth in EVs and incentives to address charging gaps.

It estimates more than 100 million chargers will be needed across its members’ jurisdictions by 2030. But as of mid-2022, only 13 per cent of these public chargers were in place.

Having readily accessible chargers helps reduce concerns about range anxiety, which in turn can help improve EV uptake rates. It also reduces the requirement for EVs to have larger batteries, which makes them more affordable.

The planet cannot survive humanity’s current transport habits.

Putting in place strategies to accelerate the transition to cleaner transport would be a giant step towards meeting global commitments to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Ambitious EV policies would reduce emissions and improve air quality.

Although EVs are a crucial piece of decarbonisation efforts, they are not the complete solution to cutting transport emissions.

Strategies to change travel behaviour, such as reducing the number of cars on the roads, increasing the use of “tiny vehicles” such as e-bikes and e-scooters, and improving walkability and access to public transport, could all help.

If well planned and implemented, these policies and strategies will collectively achieve transport emission reduction targets in the world’s cities.

Without a comprehensive set of consistent policies, particularly in nations embarking on their decarbonisation efforts, dependence on fossil fuels will deepen and reaching emissions reduction goals will become harder. 360info

The writer is professor of future urban mobility at Swinburne University of Technology. His current work focuses on decarbonising urban transport and harnessing digital innovations to unlock opportunities for sustainable mobility futures. He is a fellow of Engineers Australia, a fellow of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, and a fellow of American Society of Civil Engineers.